Monday, 12 July 2010

Daydreaming

It's not that shopping is boring, but it just doesn't occupy 100% of my brain.

Lunch was in the Italian restaurant in the shopping precinct. Two women met and were stood beside a shopping trolly in the concourse, gassing for the entire duration of my meal, and were still at it as we were walking out of the mall. I mean, I know it's possible in principle, but it's impressive to see it for real.

Promocash has a new chilled goods department. It's basically a 100-metre-square walk-in fridge. You come into the shop from 31 degress outside, into the fridge at 5 degrees, and it feels cold. It reminded me of a joke, that, unusually for my repertoire, is repeatable on a family-friendly website:

A mother polar bear is walking with her cub in an arctic blizzard. The cub says: - Am I a polar bear? - Yes, of course. Daddy was a polar bear, I'm a polar bear, so you're a baby polar bear. - OK

They continue for a few minutes and the cub pipes up again: - Are you sure I'm a polar bear? - Yes, of course. Daddy was a polar bear, I'm a polar bear, so you're a baby polar bear. - OK

A few minutes later the cub asks again: - Are you really sure I'm a polar bear? - Yes of course. Why do you keep asking if you're a polar bear? - I'm freezing

My thoughts turn to the colleague who told me this joke, years ago. He will be known as Phil, and what I remember most about him is that he was chunkily built, not especially tall, not especially rugged, not especially handsome, but girls would drop their knickers for him at the drop of a hat. He was amazing to watch in action, his apparently effortless style more like a Torville and Dean routine than anything else. His most famous success was when he serviced an attractive young temp in the ladies' toilets at work. I think he was carpeted for this by his boss's boss, but I don't think it did his career any long-term harm. Bargain.

On average about once a year, a lightning storm fries my WiFi/ADSL Modem/router. This year being no exception, I went out a couple of weeks ago with a budget of 70 euros or so (about the going rate) to replace my fried one with a new one. They are getting hard to find, since most internet subs now come with such a device, branded a "Livebox" or some such, so we had to look in several supermarkets to find one. Well I found one "on sale" from 140 euros to 70. Yeah right. Well it's about the right price, so I bought it anyway, and this blog post comes to you via that very device. Today I looked in a different supermarket to see if they had any, for future reference, and they did, and these ones were indeed, on sale, a proper mark-down this time. 20 euros. I bought one, I nearly bought two. I now have insurance, and I can guarantee you that from now on, lightning will avoid my phone line until this spare one becomes obsolete and can't be used as a replacement.

Shopping trolleys seem to be a lot better these days than they used to be. I remember they never used to go straight, but wouldn't steer either. Modern ones are much better. You can tell if you've got a really good one, you can give it a good shove, ride on the back, and it goes in a straight line, doesn't spin, and doesn't throw you off. Of course you need something in it to weigh it down, or else it upends and throws you off anyway.

Tip: When loading up a car with shopping, don't put glass bottles right at the back of the boot, cos when you open it, they fall out and break.

Coming back from shopping the wife and I were discussing the usatisfying purchases we have had to make this year. A washing machine to replace the old one that failed (and that then didn't work) The new modem/router to replace the fried one, and other sundry annoyances - oh yes, the car battery that failed for no reason. There was a smell of fried electronics when we opened the door back home. Yep, my PC had fried while we were out, despite its being turned off. Power supply fail. I figure it's worth investing 30 euros to see if I can get a replacement power supply, before thinking about a new PC. At least the data is backed up.

After sundry call outs to have the oven put right after thunderstorms, despite an anti surge device, my husband, desperate to reach his supper which was locked inside the brute, went for it with a screwdriver. Never a problem since.

Thanks for your comments, always appreciated. Mark, I have tried various surge protectors, with limites success as you can see. Currently I'm using a Belkin one for the ADSL line that is part of a mains anti-surge unit. We will see if that works. If you have a specific recommendation, I'd love to hear it, thanks.

Me

By a beautiful river valley in North-West France. This blog is about the day-to-day events in running a group gîte in Mayenne. There's a lot of gardening, maintenance, but, I hope, a lot of fun too.
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